


Always There

by PorcelanaRota



Series: Dignity and Grace [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Complete, Crying, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e21 Timephoon!, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Love Donald Duck And It Is A Crime That They Didn't Know He Was Missing, Louie is just having a hard time adjusting, Spoilers, Takes Place During and Post-Timephoon, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-13 20:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20588270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelanaRota/pseuds/PorcelanaRota
Summary: “You might be my mom… but you aren’t the one who has always been there for me.”In which Louie just really misses his Uncle Donald and is far more uncomfortable with Della suddenly appearing and trying to play parent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT Della-bashing -- this is just a frustrated ten-year-old who misses the only parent he has ever known. The next update will include Della and Louie making up and trying to understand each other better.

It’s been hard without Uncle Donald. 

The very day he left, Louie’s and his brothers’ mom comes back. It’s great at first. They’re all so happy to have Della back, and Louie and his brothers are excited to have a mom. He doesn’t really expect much to change -- there’s just another adult around, another family member to love, a personality to get to know instead of only hearing stories about it. 

But then--

But then Della tries to  _ parent  _ them? 

Louie uses the term “parent” loosely. She doesn’t do a very good job of acting like a mom. She started tucking them in at night, sure, but she doesn’t scold them or anything. Not like Uncle Donald does. 

But it’s still weird. She’s a stranger who Louie has only ever heard stories of. Dewey and Huey both seem to transition so easily into building a relationship with her, but Louie just doesn’t know how to mimic that. How can he? They have things in common with her but Louie doesn’t. Huey has his interest in the Junior Woodchucks and Dewey has that reckless sense of adventure….

Louie was indeed a Woodchuck, but he didn’t enjoy it to the extent that Huey and Della do. And sure, adventures are fun, but he is not as carefree about them like Dewey and Della. He has to think things out and be cautious about everything -- similar to Uncle Donald but with a lot less attentiveness and wariness. 

He feels like an outlier and he misses Uncle Donald. If their uncle was here, he wouldn’t feel so alone. Why did he have to leave for that cruise the  _ day  _ Della came back?

That’s where the idea is born. 

He remembers hearing Gyro talking about a time-traveling bathtub and he thinks,  _ Hey, if I go back in time, I can stop Uncle Donald from going on that cruise.  _

Then he immediately remembers  _ why  _ his uncle left. He was so stressed that he was molting. Stressed because of his family. 

Stressed because of Louie. 

And just like that, his thoughts of stopping Donald from going on the cruise cease. 

But… not his thoughts of stealing the bathtub. 

What was the harm in taking the bathtub and using it to steal -- ah,  _ rescue _ missing treasures from the past? Well, that’s the beauty of it -- there is no harm! It’s treasure that is lost to history, lost to  _ time  _ one might say. It isn’t stealing because the treasures are already missing. 

So that’s what Louie does. He researches lost treasures, when and where they were last seen, and he then spirits them away back to the mansion. It’s a pretty good system until he discovers that every time he uses the bathtub, someone or even multiple people get misplaces through time. 

He tries to put everything back in its proper time and place, but it somehow worsens the situation, sending his family through time. But he figures out a solution, and everything turns out okay, and that’s the important part, right? 

Sure, that wouldn’t work on Uncle Donald, but Uncle Donald is gone until the cruise is over, so what does it matter? 

But apparently, even though Della has been failing at real parenting, she decides to try to be Uncle Donald. 

And honestly? That pisses him off. How dare she? How could she act like a mom? She isn’t one. She up and left for ten years for a pipe dream. Louie and his brothers didn’t need the stars -- they needed a  _ mother _ , but instead, they got Uncle Donald and you know what, Della? Uncle Donald is better. Because Uncle Donald is on vacation and not disappearing off on his own selfish whims like you, Della, okay? He knows that he has me and my brothers to care about and so he will stay. Just like how you knew that you had me and my brothers to care about and still  _ left us. _

He doesn’t say any of that stuff. He wants to so badly, but he doesn’t. His fists are clenched and hidden in his hoody’s pockets and he can hear the blood pumping in his ears and yet he still somehow keeps a lid on most of his grievances. 

But not all of them, because he refuses to let a stranger try to be Uncle Donald. 

“Your little scheme to bypass the present almost cost us our future,” Della says harshly. “This all stops  _ now.  _ You are grounded! No more schemes, no more treasures, and Louie Incorporated is done, understand?” 

No, Louie doesn’t understand. And he wanted to make sure she knew that. 

“No,” he fires back, angry and frustrated. “I  _ don’t _ understand. You haven’t been here for even two weeks! What gives you the right to ground me?”

“I am your mother--” she starts, eyes narrowed and her arms crossing.

“You might be my mom…” he interrupts, voice low and dangerous, “but you aren’t the one who has always been there for me.” Everyone gasps and Della looks more than a little heartbroken, but Louie can’t find it within himself to care seeing as his vision is going blurry with tears. He hates himself for it. Why is he crying? He is angry. He is so, so angry and frustrated and tired and bitter and miserable and upset and all he wants is his Uncle Donald, okay? Uncle Donald always knew how to make him feel better. Not this stranger. 

“Uncle Donald is the one who’s been there for me,” he says, wiping away at his tears. He tries to will them away and is mortified that despite this, a sob builds up and breaks out of his beak, loud and pathetic. “Not-- not you. You’re not-- you weren’t the--” Another sob, more tears that he can’t wipe away. He hates himself. Why can’t he force the words out? 

“Louie…” Huey whispers sadly, stepping toward him, ever the concerned oldest triplet, but Louie backs away sharply. Comfort isn’t what he wants. He wants to be listened to, to be acknowledged, but neither of those things can happen if he breaks down in his big brother’s arms. 

“No!” he shouts because he doesn’t know how to articulate anything at this point. “Just-- just stop, okay?” He’s not talking to Huey, who stopped walking to him when he jerked back. He’s talking to Della. “Uncle Donald-- he’s the one who's done everything for me. He’s always,  _ always _ been there for me and has done ever-everything he could for me. And even though money was always tight h-he made sure he could-- he could give me money every time I asked for a donation to Louie’s Kids even though I made it up and I-- and I just--” He took a few deep, shuddering breaths and steadfastly ignored everyone in front of him. He needed to say this. He had to explain it.

“And he was the one who-- he gave up everything for us. He-- he stopped adventuring, he stopped talking to his old friends, he took so-- so many hard jobs so he could-- so he could be a parent for us. And you… you didn’t do any of that. Uncle Donald did.” He wiped at his eyes again and found that while they had stopped producing tears, they were welling up once more. 

“Uncle Donald can ground me. The person who gave up everything for me. I’ve known you for a little over a week…. And I can’t-- you can’t--” he was losing his words again. He inhaled deeply and pulled his hood over his head to give himself time to organize his thoughts. “You’re a  _ stranger _ . You have no right to ground me. But since Uncle Donald isn’t here, if Mrs. Beakley and Uncle Scrooge think I should be grounded, then fine. But you… I don’t know you.” 

A quavering breath, and then, “Fine.” Della clears her throat then asks, “Mrs. B, Uncle Scrooge, what do you think Louie’s punishment should be?” 

He hears shuffling, people shifting around uncomfortably. Louie refuses to look up and grits his teeth. 

“Well, I, uh….” Mrs. Beakley trails off. 

“Grounding is a good idea,” Uncle Scrooge awkwardly puts in. “And putting Louie, Inc. on hold is, as well, but I believe that banning it completely is a tad… extreme.”

“How long am I grounded for?” Louie asks. 

“Ahh… a… week?” Uncle Scrooge uncertainly answers. 

“A week seems… reasonable,” Mrs. Beakley agrees. 

“Okay,” Louie nods his hooded head. “Then I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

Then, before anyone can properly respond, Louie bolts upstairs, not looking up once.

As soon as he makes it to his shared room, he jumps into bed and under the covers, throwing them over his head and weeping. 

A few minutes into this, the door opens and he hears two people walk in. Soon enough, the two are climbing up on his bed, curling around him and wrapping their wings around him. 

“Oh, Louie,” Huey sighed, nuzzling Louie’s head with his beak. 

“You okay, little buddy?” Dewey asked gently. 

Louie could feel himself fall apart at his seams. With a trembling exhale, he said:

“I just  _ really _ miss Uncle Donald.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things very briefly get better, and then they worsen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me when I posted the first part: I'm gonna update this tomorrow!  
Depression: Cool idea, but like, what if you.... didn't?  
Me: Oh no.
> 
> I'm posting this in the middle of my biology lecture. My professor probably hates me lol
> 
> Anyway so yeah, here's the second part!

Did that really just happen? 

Did Louie, her son, her youngest baby, just say all that? 

His words echoed in her mind even after her other two children ran after their little brother. 

_ “You might be my mom… but you aren’t the one who has always been there for me.”  _

_ “He gave up everything for us.” _

_ “You’re a stranger.” _

_ “I don’t know you.”  _

And the thing is, he is right. Louie is right. She may have been sending video transmissions, but he doesn’t really know her outside of them or as an authority figure. Hell, she doesn’t know him! They are strangers. 

She’s spent one-on-one time with Dewey and Huey, but she hasn’t yet done the same for her youngest. Of course he would be unsettled. Of course he wouldn’t react well to her playing mom. 

“I’m… I’m a failure of a mother,” she whispered through tears. 

“Oh, lass,” her Uncle Scrooge sighed, and then his hands wrapped around her shoulders from behind. “You’re not a failure. The only parent who fails is one who mistreats or neglects their child.” 

“Didn’t I do that, though?” she asks desperately, her voice breaking. “Isn’t that what I did? I wanted to give them the stars…. But instead I just gave them ten years of an absentee--”

Scrooge’s arms tightening around her shaking frame silenced her, and he quickly asserted with a small growl, “Now listen here, lass! No one could have predicted what happened. It is not your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. And you spent every day on the blasted moon trying to come back to those kids. You are a  _ good _ mother. It is just that you are a  _ new  _ mother and the lads, or at least Louie, don’t see you as an authority figure.” 

Della opened her beak to protest further when a thought suddenly struck her. She swallows back her tears.

“Uncle… Uncle Scrooge, what did Louie mean that Donald gave up everything for them?” 

Scrooge stiffens, his breath hitching, before he let loose a sigh and let his arms drop from her so he could move to look her in the eye. 

“Della, you have to understand…. After we lost transmission, we thought… we thought the worst. We thought you were dead. And--”

“Wait,” she interrupts. “You thought I was dead?” Her voice was raising, growing in desperation. “You-- but I-- weren’t you getting my transmissions?”

Her uncle’s face took on a new sorrow, his brow furrowing and his beak settling into a frown, “Oh, lass… we never received any transmissions.” 

The floor beneath Della shattered into hundreds of thousands of pieces. The room spun around her in circles and her vision went blurry and black. Her heart jumped up and down in her chest, her blood pumping so loud in her ears it was like rhythmic gunshots. 

She didn’t notice that she collapsed to her knees until Scrooge’s voice filtered back in over the sound of her blood, and she was also suddenly aware of the fact that her head was tucked carefully in the crook of her uncle’s neck. 

“--Della, lass, shh, shh, it’s okay now, it’s okay….”

But it wasn’t okay. She thought ten years on the moon was her punishment for taking the Spear, but it was more than that. It was also her children not knowing her at all. It was ten years of useless transmissions. 

With these thoughts, Della began to weep. Uncle Scrooge tightened his grip on her, but it did nothing to ground her. 

This sort of anguish is supposed to be heavy. It’s supposed to feel as if she is being weighed down by the most hulking shackles and chains, fettering her to an abstract pit of which only she is a citizen.

Instead, this anguish makes her feel light, like she’s back on the moon, the bitter taste of Oxychew resting on her tongue. As her uncle holds her, she thinks she may as well still be there. 

Inexplicably, she misses Donald. 

* * *

When Louie wakes up the next morning, it’s to tangled limbs, heated bodies, and dried tears in his feathers. His brothers, still curled in on his form, are still sleeping, and if it weren’t for the pressing need to go to the bathroom in his bladder, he would rejoin them in slumber. 

He carefully removes himself from his brothers’ respective holds and makes his way to the door. He twists the doorknob slowly, trying to keep from waking up his brothers, and winces with the small  _ creak  _ the door makes as it opens. 

The wince turns into a full-body flinch when he sees someone standing in the doorway, fist raised and poised to gently rap against what had once been a closed door. It’s the person he wants to see least. 

Della. 

“L-Louie!” she cries out, looking surprised, nervous, and weary all at once. “I-I didn’t expect- I mean I--” 

“I guess you wanna talk about last night, huh?” Louie asks forlornly before she could send herself further into a stuttering mess. He doesn’t want to talk. He just wants to cuddle with his big brothers some more before facing the real world. However, he knew that this was something that he should figure out sooner rather than later. 

“Yes!” she said, relieved, something in her eyes relaxing. 

“Well, I have to go to the bathroom first, so.” 

“O-oh! Of course!” She stepped aside and let Louie through, who shut the door behind him with a click. 

“I’ll meet you in the living room when I’m done,” he stated dismissively, walking past her and toward the bathroom down the hall. 

“I’ll be there!” said Della with a forced cheer from behind him. He didn’t have to turn around to know she had an anxious, hopeful grin on her beak. 

* * *

Louie took his time in the bathroom, but after his second time reading the ingredients in the soap bottle, he had to admit defeat and head to the living room. There, his mom waited, fidgeting in her place on the davenport, switching between playing with her fingers and gently tugging on her hair. Louie watched her for a second from the doorway, his eyes studying her form, which suddenly looked smaller on the big sofa than it did last night. 

With a sigh, Louie walked fully into the room and sat next to Della, making sure to leave about a foot of space between them. Della, who’s full attention had been given to him the moment she heard his footsteps, cleared her throat. 

“Louie,” she started, her eyes brimming with repentance and hope to make this all better. The hope wasn’t unfounded: things could only get better, but Louie doubted that this talk would be a magical cure-all for their family’s many, many problems. “Louie. I’m sorry about last night…. I’m sorry about a lot of things.” 

He shifted uncomfortably, “Oh?”

“Yes!” she nodded emphatically. “I know I-- I had been sending transmissions from the moon all these years, and I really thought you guys had been getting them. But last night, after our argument, I realized you hadn’t been. You and your brothers… you three don’t know me at all outside of stories and pictures. It was wrong of me to expect that you would be okay with me up and appearing out of nowhere and acting like your mom. I’m sorry, Louie.” 

Uncle Donald always told him and his brothers to not accept an apology just because someone said they were sorry. He said that it was okay to still be angry or sad or scared or upset and that their feelings mattered and didn’t magically go away when confronted with even the most earnest  _ I’m sorry  _ spoken. Louie was still angry and sad, he was still upset that Della had taken the  _ Spear of Selene _ , and was feeling a little scared without his guardian present for Della’s return to earth and their family. 

And that’s why Louie quietly said, “Thank you,” instead of, “It’s okay.” 

It wasn’t okay. It never would be. But one day, maybe Louie could forgive her. 

Either way, Della didn’t seem to notice the difference between thank you and it’s okay, and she went on to say, “Scrooge and I talked, too, after….” She shook her head, as if pushing aside the memories of last night, and continued, “Your Uncle Scrooge said that Donald raised you boys by himself?” 

Louie froze. The falling out Scrooge and Uncle Donald had had after Della absconded off with the  _ Spear _ was a taboo subject ever since the woman had come back. No one wanted to tell her that her disappearance had caused a terrible rift in the family that lasted for years. 

No one until last night, apparently. 

“He did,” Louie confirmed cautiously, wondering where this was going. “All by himself. We didn’t even know we were related to Uncle Scrooge until less than a year ago.” 

Della winced, a shudder of gloom going down her frame, but Louie couldn’t find any sympathy in him. 

“Yeah,” she spoke quietly. “I didn’t know about that, either. I thought-- I thought he and Scrooge had raised you boys together. But now, now I see that I was wrong. I see that my brother did everything he could for you. I see that he… Donald is basically your father. He stayed and I… left.”

This was probably the part where Louie was supposed to comfort her, but the thing was that she was right. Donald was their father. He stayed. He gave up so much for them and loved them like they were his sons and not his sister’s. 

“I understand, Louie. I get it. I haven’t done anything to show you that I’m here to stay and I haven’t done anything to earn your respect as a parent. But I’m here now, and I won’t make the same mistake I made ten years ago. Will you give me a chance to prove this to you?” 

He thought it over, rolled her words over in his mind. She was sincere, there was no doubt. He could see it in the genuine glint in her eye, could see it in her hunched shoulders and the way she made herself smaller and thus more approachable. He could hear it in her shaky voice, in the optimistic and apologetic waver on the word  _ chance.  _ She meant it. Every word. 

“I can give you a chance,” he responded, but his voice was cold. “But you won’t replace Uncle Donald, okay? You won’t. You can’t. No one can.” 

Gleaming tears shined in her eyes at his words, and she whispered, “I understand, Louie. I’m just glad you are giving me this chance.” 

He nodded and stayed silent. What more was there to say? He made his case clear. He’d give her a chance, but she would never be his mom. Just Della, or mother at most. 

She out a tremulous sigh, “Well, why don’t we call that cruise your uncle is on, then? I’m sure they’ll give us a few minutes at least, even if they have a no cell phone rule…”

Louie brightened considerably, his heart leaping. He wanted to talk to his uncle so bad! 

“Should we wait for Huey and Dewey to wake up?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. Judging by Della’s amused look, he failed, but he didn’t care too terribly right now. 

“Why don’t you go wake them up right now? I’ll go ahead and place the call. It’ll probably take a little bit for them to get him to the phone, anyway.” 

Louie nodded and rushed off to get his older brothers. He came back in just a few minutes, and he could tell from the pale, devastated expression on her face and the hand that limply held the landline that something was truly, awfully wrong. 

“Mom?” Dewey warily asked. “What’s wrong?” 

“The cruise line says that Donald… that your uncle never got on the cruise. He’s not there.” 

And with those words, Louie’s world shattered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is basically a crime that they didn't realize that Donald was missing in the show, okay? He deserves better.


End file.
